April 3, 2010

This is an old post from when we were first starting to find success with the Constructional Aggression Treatment as a method for rehabilitating aggressive dogs.

The Momentary Mentor:Flow Around9/2/06

A rather surprising thing has begun to happen in my life. The things I’ve worked hard to achieve are coming to fruition. It’s amazing, incredible, exciting! My education, career and family are all coming along beautifully. Hard work, sacrifice and persistence do eventually pay off.

I would be able to say it couldn’t be better but for one disconcerting result of my fledgling professional success. It’s pissing people off.

But it turns out that’s okay.

I never set out to be in competition with anyone and it came as a complete surprise that some people want to spar. I mostly like sorting out problems. I have been interested in aggression in animals as well as humans for a long time, and the opportunity to help Jesus Rosales-Ruiz develop an aggression treatment procedure that also reveals some heretofore unrealized facts about behavior is an amazing experience.

But what makes it even better is when other people take the procedure and use it in their work in creative and innovative ways, developing it, making it even better. When people send me emails or call with news of their latest success, it is the absolute best thing ever! What could be better than doing work that people can actually use successfully to make the world a better place? In my view, that’s the ultimate success story.

And yet there are people who aren’t happy that we’re working with canine aggression, and they’re even less happy that we’re telling the world about it.

That’s okay.

When we first began this research, I was just plain excited about it and talked about it a lot. People soon began to criticize what we’re doing without knowing much about it. How maddening! But once I sat down and thought it through, I realized that many of these folks have been getting their reinforcers from working with aggression for a long time. Many of them are darned good at it. I’m the new kid on the block. They deserve what they’ve worked to achieve. I must still earn their respect if I’m to ever have it. And maybe I won’t. Others are struggling to make a name in the highly competitive world of dog training and animal behavior. They see me as a challenge.

And that’s okay, too. The thing is, I’m not competing. If I have my way, they will become as successful as they are willing to work to become.

When I realized that even when someone is being unkind or even threatening, it’s still just behavior under the influence of the environment, it became easier to take. It became much more natural to step back and look at things reasonably rather than taking everything personally. It’s still not fun to receive criticism or to hear about it second hand. But it is a different experience now than before I understood what they are working for. From their perspectives other peoples’ successes in their field puts their access to their reinforcers in jeopardy.

When one person approached me, almost daring me to try to convince a certain group of highly experienced experts that our procedure was better than what they are doing, I realized that convincing people who don’t want to be convinced is not what I’m in this work for. If they don’t want to be convinced, nothing I can show them is going to change their minds.

As soon as I realized that, things began to get better for me, fast. It wasn’t anything psychic or an intervention from the mystic collective unconscious or anything like that. It was a simple change of focus. Who does want to learn about our procedure? Who needs it? Who is willing to give it a fair shot at success? That simple change of focus brought me new clients, new speaking opportunities, more professional options, and much less worry.

I’m doing this work because I want a career where I can help people and animals. A few paragraphs ago when I wrote how excited I get when people take our research and use it in the real world? That’s where my reinforcers come from. Not in breaking through to people who don’t want to be convinced. So I stopped trying to convince them and went where there was no resistance.

There are an estimated 4.7 million dog bites in this country each year according to the National Centers for Disease Control. There are plenty of aggressive dogs to go around. I don’t have to fight the current experts for the same dogs they’re working with. That will just mean I’m fighting, fighting, fighting all the time, and that won’t get me any closer to the reinforcers I value. What I have to do is find the people who care about some dogs’ behavior, who are looking for answers, and show them that I can do something to help.

It turns out that’s as easy as water flowing down a stream.

The first time I told this story, it turned into a parable. In the two weeks since I first told it, I’ve found the opportunity to tell it several times. In every case the listener has told me it made a difference. I hope it will make a difference for you. If not, just keep it stored away. There may come a time when you can use it.

Trying to convince those who are fighting not to be convinced is like water trying to flow through a stone. The stone is strong and valuable on the Earth, but it is stone. Instead of trying to penetrate stone, flow around. In a hundred years the stone will still be strong and stationary, perhaps worn down a little on the side where the water has flowed around it, but still a stone. But the water will be miles away, far along on its journey, transformed by the plants and animals that drink it, part of the clouds above it, part of the earth below it.

If you come across people in your life who fight or resist you as you try to be everything you can be, honor them in those things for which they deserve honor. Then flow around.

November 15, 2009

Here’s my excuse: Apparently Kindles need a break every now and then. My Kindle has been returned to me. (See yesterday’s entry.) It is like a boomerang. Here’s the history of my Kindle.

I received it sometime this summer, with great excitement and glee and it instantly became my dearest inanimate companion. (You can read yesterday’s entry for more on that.) I bought it a purple leather cover. I made a shrine to it… okay, I didn’t, but I love it. No more teetering stacks of books on my bedside table. Just one sleek electronic device.

In late June I took the Kindle to Sequim Washington where Jesus and I were doing a seminar on the Constructional Aggression Treatment. I had to leave early because I received a call that my ailing father had taken a turn for the worse. I and all my stuff were taken to the tiny airport where I would hitch a ride to Seattle and fly to Dallas, then drive to East Texas where my Dad was entering hospice care.

I stepped off the teeny plane and walked across the tarmac dragging my suitcase and lugging a carry on and got all the way inside the airport before realizing I’d left the Kindle in the seat pocket. I panicked and asked someone to help because the plane was ROLLING and I was afraid he was going to taxi off to the runway with my Kindle. A very nice young man (probably in his 40s) went out and got it off the plane, and returned it to me wearing a bemused… nay… annoyed… expression.

I went out front and got on a bus which would take me to the big airport. I started chatting with the folks around me. I hopped off the bus and went off toward the airport terminal, and realized I’d forgotten my Kindle in the seat pocket. Note to self: DO NOT PUT KINDLE IN PUBLIC TRANSPORT SEAT POCKETS!!!! I dashed back. Dashing is something less than running, but still took my breath away.

I got off the bus again and scurried (slower than dashing, faster than walking) through the very long airport to catch the next plane only to realize that I had my Kindle … but I didn’t have MY SUITCASE!!!! This wasn’t a normal lay over. It was a wee-plane to big-plane switcheroo, and I had zoned out thinking about my Dad and forgot that it was do-it-yourself service from thither to yon.

I ran back (literally ran… if you can imagine that) back to the other end of the airport only to see two men standing with my suitcase, scratching their heads. Between gasps I called out, “That’s mine!” They looked at me as I slowed to a dash and then a scurry and finally a stertorous stop. One of them said, “Well, did ya forget your luggage now?” I refrained from offering a clever retort only because I was out of breath. He said, “We were just deciding what to do about it and here you came running!” I replied something like, “Pant, pant, pant… Thank pant you pant pant… so pant pant… much pant pant pant.”

“Are you alright then? Anything else I can help you with?” The other man was just grinning. I wondered if they knew the guy who went to grab my Kindle off the wee plane.

There have been nights when Kindle spent the night at one of my offices. There have been days when my Kindle was at home and I wished it were with me, where ever I was. But I got the DX… a bigger version of the Kindle… and it didn’t fit well into any of my purses so I was always leaving it elsewhere because I have so much stuff to tote at work. That lead to me buying the nice purple tote I wrote about yesterday. I’m hoping it will resolve my Kindle forgetting. We’ll see.

So, what have I learned from all this? That I do indeed have an attachment to inanimate objects problem. I wonder what I would have felt if I had forever lost a couple dozen of my favorite hard copy books. Would I have felt the sense of panic … and of dukkha … that I felt last night when my Kindle was missing? I don’t think so. I think it was the $500 bucks we doled out on the device and the $50 more on the cover that made it such a big deal. It is actually a device I coveted but didn’t need, and certainly didn’t miss before I got it. But I had an attachment to getting it. I really wanted it. And when I found out I could get a purple cover for it… well… it was mine.

Another lesson in dukkha. What do you do about the attachment when something is lost then returns to you? If I were a good Buddhist I might get rid of the Kindle. Sell it on Ebay, donate the money to the SPCA? But I would still have my attachment to books. I would still have attachments to all sorts of things. And I’ve learned much of what little I know about Buddhism on my Kindle. So. I don’t know what else to say about that except that I’m keeping my Kindle. Unless I lose it for real sometime. (I’m not really a Buddhist, I’m just saying…and I’m going to write separately on the Complete Buddhist… stay tuned.)

And that brings to mind what I automatically did last night. I quickly came to the conclusion that it had been stolen, possibly by one of the two women standing in the bag section looking at wallets. I very quickly dismissed the notion that maybe I forgot it somewhere again. I did fleetingly think that if I had left it in my cart (which I had) someone had already swiped it. But I had, they handn’t, and no one did any swiping. It was just me being forgetful. (Forgetfulness drives me crazy but I’m SOOO good at it!) And me learning that blaming people isn’t too helpful.

Here’s what I did with my dukkha last night. Whenever I would think about the Kindle and feel angry or sick, I would stop myself and say, “Okay, be with that feeling.” And I would think about the knot in my stomach and just make myself stay there with that physical sensation. And the sensation went away. By the time I went to bed I was still disappointed, but I was okay. I had let go. I was doing okay with the loss. I still had work to do on it, but I was very nearly okay.

This process seems to have desensitized me to the loss. This morning when I first woke up and thought about it, I felt a lesser sense of loss, but went into it, just went to that dull feeling and stayed with it. It diminished.

So when I checked my voice mail and got a message saying the Kindle had been found in the shopping cart where I’d carelessly left it, I felt a little bewildered. Really? I was so sure it was gone for good. I’d done my homework in letting go of the attachment. I’d refrained from ordering another Kindle, not just because it was expensive but because I wasn’t sure I needed to have one. (Okay, to be sure I did peek at the new Kindle model when I went online to cut off my Kindle service last night. It’s smaller and will fit in more purses, AND it has global wireless, not just in the USA. I don’t leave the country that often, but that would be cool… At cocktail parties I could say, “Oh, yes, I downloaded that book while vacationing in Belize.” Of course I haven’t been to a cocktail party in 20 years. And I’ve never been to Belize. But the DX has a rotating display, and that does come in handy sometimes. So, yeah, I would have ordered another Kindle.)

Kindle is home now, and fortunately I did not return the purple Kindle Purse, although I have yet to find a bag for inside the Kindle purse. Maybe Ziploc makes something suitable. (See yesterday’s post for more on that, too.) I re-registered her immediately. It was super easy to do… even a thief could have done it. See? There I go again.

November 15, 2009

I had a Kindle DX. It was the object-love of my life. Aside from my Element, my Kindle was my favorite inanimate object. Well, except for my angled rug hook, my sock monkey slippers and my computer. And my Merrell’s work shoes. And our Tempurpedic bed. In fact, the Kindle and the Tempurpedic … does anyone need anything else, really? Really?

I was having this problem with the kindle. It didn’t fit in my main purse, and any other bags I had were too giant and irritating, so I went out looking for a bag for my Kindle. It’s own pursey bag to be carried in. I went to TJ Max. (You can get the max for the minimum at TJ Max.) Brought my Kindle. Let it try on several purses. Settled on a purple tote that somewhat matched my Kindle’s outfit, a purple Kindle Cover. I was happy, Kindle was happy. I paid for the bag, and some hand lotion, and went to my car. I drove home. I started to get out of the car, and Kindle wasn’t there. I panicked. I said Burma. I freaked out. I searched the car and SPED back to TJ Max. The manager was quite pleasant but hadn’t had one turned in. I wanted to have an anxiety attack or something. I was just sick. I retraced my steps through the store, when it dawned on me that it had been stolen.

The store was packed. It looked like Christmas shopping going down in there. I had pulled up next to a couple of women looking at clutches… I was hoping to find a small bag to fit inside my Kindle bag that could be pulled out when I wanted to go places Kindle didn’t need to go. (Not many places, but I was in a very consumer mood. A purse for my Kindle, a bag for my Kindle’s purse. Made sense to me.)

I realized that just before that was the last time I saw Kindle. I called home and my hubby dearest got online and realized, no, there isn’t any insurance on it, and no, Amazon doesn’t really have any way to stop people from re-registering a device as stolen and preventing downloads … or at least no policy of doing that. Apparently Kindles are big business in the Thieving and conniving business these days. They could easily make a stolen Kindle worthless by never allowing it to be registered again without certain backflips, but no. All I could do was “Deregister” the Kindle and feel like crying. I didn’t actually cry but I really, really felt like it. I LOVE MY KINDLE AND WANT IT BACK. It had my business cards in the pocket with my work phone number, but my work cell hasn’t rung, and it’s not going to. At least not with someone saying they have my Kindle and want me to have it back.

So I drove back home, feeling just like crap, really. I mean, really! I was BUYING my KINDLE a PURSE and someone STOLE it! Now I have a stupid purple tote that doesn’t have even one Kindle DX to its name. I was driving and it was dark and people are SO STUPID when they drive at night. They just cruise along like they have all the time in the world and don’t even CARE that someone MIGHT have had her KINDLE stolen, DAMN THEM TO HELL AND BACK!!!

So, I’m driving in the dark and I happened to touch my neck and a tiny little pendant I got in the mail today. It is a silver circle. On one side is a Japanese character, and on the other, the meaning translated into English. Zen. Meditate. Be here now.

I didn’t want to be there, because there was very, very VERY very annoying and I wanted to be anywhere but there. But I wasn’t somewhere else, I was there. I was there, in my car on a dark Irving Texas road with someone else reading my Zen library… what is someone else going to do with 20 Zen Buddhism books? Only I need them, do you hear me?

But I touched the little silver sliver and I came back to here, now, and I thought, “This feels really bad.” Then I’d think of what kind of stinking jerk would steal a Kindle, of all things, and I said, “Okay, but be HERE now.” And I stayed for a while, but I didn’t really want to at all, so I wondered how mad my husband really was… Kindles aren’t cheap, you know… and I said, “Okay, but be HERE now.” So I stayed there for maybe a few blocks. I felt how bad I felt, and I felt the attachment to this thing, this electronic book, this object that had taken on a life of its own. I thought about attachment and how it causes dukkha (suffering). I thought about my Kindle. I thought about dukkha. I was having a bunch of dukkha. I hate dukkha. I think a Buddhist teacher would say I made my dukkha more powerful by staying mad at the person that stole my Kindle. But I don’t have a zen teacher, so I might as well not get too attached to that whole idea or I’ll have more dukkha.

I thought about the purple leather tote. I got so mad. How could I ever use that purse knowing I got it when my Kindle needed something to ride in and that now I don’t have a Kindle at all? Damn, damn, DAMN!! Damn, I miss my Kindle.

So I thought, “Be here now. HERE now.” I thought, “Damn, I miss my Kindle. Missing my Kindle hurts. Now hurts. I miss my damned Kindle. I have to let go of my Kindle because it’s gone and I don’t want to, I don’t want to, I don’t want to, damn it, damn it, damn it. But that’s all there is to do. All I can do is miss my Kindle because it’s gone. And most likely, no one is going to give it back. It is gone.” I breathed. I felt the tightness loosen in my chest. I didn’t feel like crying any more. I didn’t feel like punishing myself for being so careless anymore. I still felt sad, but that was valid. I lost something I didn’t expect to lose. I’m going to have an extinction burst since that form of reinforcement is no longer available. There may be another Kindle in my future, but that one is gone. Breathe. Gone. Breathe. Gone. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

I am not quite through being here with the idea that someone has it, but I really have to accept that they have their own Karma. They have to live out their own choices. They wanted my Kindle, and they didn’t think about what dukkha that would bring on them. I have no idea if everyone feels dukkha for wrong-doing. I think they do, but I’m not sure. What I do know is that it doesn’t help me to create my own dukkha by attaching to my anger at whoever it was.

I’ve lost so many people this year and last. The Kindle was a little glimmer of happy in a sad couple of years. I could hide in my Kindle. I felt so rich, knowing I was carrying not just one, but many, many books. So much knowing in one little place.

I got home, called the Police who very politely took my story over the phone, although I did think they were going a bit far to ask my WEIGHT, for crying out loud.

I’m going to go watch a movie on TV with my husband. I’m going to drink a glass of wine and I’m going to scratch my dogs where they love to be scratched and when I think about my Kindle I’m going to try to stay here now. I’m just going to try. That’s all I can do.

October 20, 2009

My sister sent me pictures by phone of my father’s headstone. I was on the road to east Texas for the big event.

I drove into town and drove through for a small coffee with one cream and one sugar. (He always went for the large, but as a symbolic gesture, I opted for the small this time.) I pulled into the cemetary thinking I would spend a few minutes there just seeing what it felt like for my dad to have a headstone. I placed the cup of coffee right above where I figured my Dad’s hands must be.

At the other end of Dad’s row there was a headstone being installed. I stood looking at our new headstone. Touched it. Stood back. I felt like I needed to do nothing and just be there.

Over from the new installation a little woman came tottering over, tidying things up as she went. Was she headed for me? Of course she was. I pretended to ignore her, but of course I couldn’t. She came up and looked at the headstone. “You’re with the Sisson family?”

I nodded. I wanted her to go away. I coached myself to just be there. She looked at the cup of McDonald’s coffee on my Dad’s grave. “Are you a relative?”

I cleared my throat. “Yes. He was my father.”

“So, there’s Grant Steven, Kellie Ann and Kerrie Jo,” she read from the stone. “Which one are you?”

“I’m Kellie.”

She introduced herself. I can’t for the life of me remember her name. I think it was Jo. My mother used to go by that name.

“I think they got it in straight. I like to be here when they put them in to make sure they are all straight. I put all these marks with spray paint to make sure they get ’em right.” She toed the orange blotch on the grass. She looked at me. “It’ll get cut off next time they mow.” She looked at the coffee cup.

“It looks nice,” I told her. I wasn’t talking about the coffee cup. I was having trouble being gracious with this kind woman who would make sure my father’s grave was always neat and tidy and that it was lined up just right with the other folks that were going to dust around him.

“They came in last month and put that one down there in and it’s about 6 inches off and gets over almost to the next grave.” It was a dark shiny stone surrounded by bric a brack. “I’ve told them to come and move it but they haven’t done it yet.”

My sister had placed solar lights by my father’s headstone. This lady… might as well call her Jo… pointed at one with her toe and said, “Lots of folks are putting those in these days.” I started to explain, but I didn’t. I would have explained if she had complained but she didn’t. She was perfectly nice but I didn’t think she would understand. And I didn’t think I could tell her unless I had to.

If I had explained I would have told the story the way my sister tells it. My father liked to sleep with the light on. He always went to bed early. He would leave the overhead light on until Mom came to bed and turned it off. Kerrie said that when Mom lays down beside him the last time, we can turn off the light.

In the last months of his life at home Pop would sometimes sleep in the guest room with the overhead light on all night. If anyone asked him how on Earth he could sleep in so much light, he would say, “I close my eyes.” I always knew that Pop could sleep with the light on, but I didn’t know he preferred it until those last fragile months. When I slept in his hospice room, I would wait for him to go to sleep and turn the lights off. He would wake up and ask me if I could sleep with the light on. We would come to some compromise where I would sleep with too much light and he would sleep with too little.

The week before he died, at the point where he wasn’t strong enough to get up at all, my aunt spent a week sleeping in his room. She slept on a little pull-0ut cot that was pretty uncomfortable. One night he told her he wouldn’t mind sleeping on that so she could sleep on his bed. He said his bed was pretty comfortable and he could sleep on anything. She hadn’t complained. He just always wanted people to be comfortable.

Jo said, “Well, I’m glad to meet you.”

“Thank you for taking such good care of this place,” I told her.

“We have a good crew that comes out and does a good job,” she said, surveying the expanse of stones on the big flat land. It was a nice day. It was sunny, and not hot. Somebody’s silk flowers had blown across the meadow. She looked at it, and I had a feeling it wouldn’t be there when I came back. I thought of how my brother and I liked to say that our father showed his love by doing things for people to make sure they were taken care of. I knew he was in the right place.

She wandered off, back to the new installation. I looked at the headstone. I touched where us kids’ names nestled between the two bigger stones carved with their names and those dates, and where our family name graced the main foundation of the piece.

I picked up the cup of coffee and sprinkled it all around my father’s grave.

October 10, 2009

Cat meditation with toes

I spent the day shopping and getting my hair cut. I went to a thrift store and got 2 100% wool jackets that will be stripped into rug fiber and one wool jacket my son nabbed. (He does enjoy a good sports coat.) I went to Walmart twice… forgot some stuff and decided to get veggies for dinner… and got some $3.50 Merlot. I’m a classy gal. Finally Tom Thumb beckoned because I needed Elmer’s glue and something I’d forgotten to get at Walmart. Vinegar. I’m going to dye some wool and someone told me that if you set the color with vinegar it comes out brighter than if you set it with salt.

So, I’m leaving Tom Thumb and I have to turn left to get to my house. There’s no light at the corner, and always a lot of traffic. If the car in front of you doesn’t GO when there is a clearing you could be there for a long time. I’m sitting there behind an SUV watching for her next chance to hit the gas when a woman in yellow ochre warm ups and matching shoes smiles and waves enthusiastically at the car in front of me. Oh, no. The woman in that car PUTS HER CAR INTO NEUTRAL to talk to the woman.

I think, oh, well, they’re city dwellers, they understand how traffic works and will arrange to chat by phone or Facebook later. Only they don’t. The driver rolls down the window and the ochre walker leans in for a comfy chat with a long lost friend she is at real risk of never seeing again.

At that moment, here comes the rare and coveted opening in the traffic, and the driver is oblivious, so I tap my horn. It’s a polite little Honda Element “Beep”… just a little “ahem” letting them know that it’s time to MOVE IT! I smiled and gestured to the fleeting opening with festive nod.

Ochre lady puts up her hand toward me in a “Stop” fashion and when I tootle again, she waves downward several times in the universal “Get the hell out of here!” gesture. About 6 cars were piled up behind me by now. This time I honk and hold for a couple of seconds and Ochre GLARES at me as if I am the rudest woman on Earth. I look in my rearview and other people are raising their hands in, “WTF” fashion.

The driver pulls over into an area BETWEEN THE INCOMING AND EXITING TRAFFIC and stops. I squeeze around, and miraculously there is just enough room to escape from the parking lot before the next traffic flood begins. As I pass the SUV, the ochre lady steps forward and glares at me.

I drive away and I’m thinking, seriously, have you never been around cars before?

So, I drove away pretty ticked off, and set about wondering what’s the zen way to deal with that? Well, Despite being a Meditator Tot, I know it’s to acknowledge that it happened, to acknowledge that it pissed me off, and once all that acknowledging is done, to just let it the heck go. No worrying about why she might have been such a bitch (Does she have cancer? Did her dog just die? Is she just made that way?) or why the two of them completely forgot how traffic works (maybe they’ve been living on a mountain in Tibet for the past 7 years or they had simultaneous strokes on the entry to the Tom Thumb parking lot.)

I came home and got the guys to help me stow the groceries and I put some lentils to cook on the stove, with garlic, onions, celery, tomatoe and… well, I forget what all else but it smells great and I hope those lentils are done soon! But in the back of my head I’m still dealing with the ochre warm-ups lady and her matching shoes and matching hair and the blood red SUV’s driver, and the ugly look on Ochre lady’s face as I squeezed my Element past the social corner.

I haven’t let it go yet. I think I need to sit with it mindfully because I am still stuck in it. I think I’m trying to run away from it rather than acknowledge it, and I think that’s why I can’t let it go.

I also think I kind of want to stay pissed at the ochre lady. But I think if I’m going to get better at being a human I don’t want to let her stay in my head making me irritated any more.

My caramel and ochre colored cat, Yoda, is curled up on my gold alpaca wool pillow sham in the guest room which used to be my office. I’m thinking he’s going to be the subject of my next hooked rug. He’s washing his face. He’s not worrying about ochre warm ups or matching shoes or ochre hair on angry faces.